Beccles Medical Practice aims to provide you with the highest quality health care. To do this we must keep records about you, your health and the care we have provided or plan to provide to you.

Your doctor and other health professionals caring for you, such as nurses or physiotherapists, keep records about your health and treatment so that they are able to provide you with the best possible care.

These records are called your ‘health care record’ and may be stored in paper form or on computer and electronic systems and may include Personal Data;

basic details about you, such as address, date of birth, NHS number, and next of kinas well as Sensitive Personal Data;

contact we have had with you, such as clinical visits

notes and reports about your health

details and records about your treatment and care

results of x-rays, laboratory tests etc.

Healthcare providers are permitted to collect, store, use and share this information under Data Protection Legislation which has a specific section related to healthcare information.

What do we do with your information?

Refer you to other healthcare providers when you need other service or tests

As part of clinical research – information that identifies you will be removed, unless you have consented to being identified

Undertaking clinical audits within the practice

Supporting staff training

Sharing when Required by Law

Sometimes we will be required by law to share your information and will not always be able to discuss this with you directly. Examples might be for the purposes of detection or prevention of crime, where it is in the wider public interest, to safeguard children or vulnerable adults, reporting infectious diseases or where required by court order.

CCTV

CCTV is in place in the Health Centre. It has been installed solely for the safety and security of our patients and staff, to prevent and deter crime.

Images are recorded 24 hours a day and stored on the hard drives of the recording devices that are situated in secure areas and only the practice managers and those delivering technical support services will have access to the system.

The CCTV only records images and does not record audio.

All CCTV recordings are stored on our recording devices for 30 days before being deleted.

There are signs in the practice telling you that CCTV is in place.We will only ever share information with the relevant authorities in connection with the safety and security of patients and staff and will not share with any other third parties.

Visitors to the practice have the right to request to see images of themselves on CCTV as part of a request made under the privacy legislation. Like all subject access requests, it must be made in writing.

There may be a charge made for this service.

We have followed the CCTV guidelines produced by the Information Commissioners’ Office.

How do we Protect your Information?

We are committed to ensuring the security and confidentiality of your information. There are a number of ways we do this;

Staff receive annual training about protecting and using personal data

Policies are in place for staff to follow and are regularly reviewed

We check that only the minimum amount of data is shared or accessed

We use ‘smartcards’ to access systems, this helps to ensure that the right people are accessing data – people with a ‘need to know’

We use encrypted emails and storage which would make it difficult for someone to ‘intercept’ your information

We report and manage incidents to make sure we learn from them and improve

We put in place contracts that require providers and suppliers to protect your data as well

We do not send your data outside of the EEA

How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

In line with the Department of Health Code, we will retain / store your health record for your lifetime. When a patient dies, we will review the record and generally it will be destroyed 10 years later, unless there is a reason to keep it for longer.

If you move away or register with another practice, we will send your records to the new practice.

Videos

Please watch the video's below to find out more about what we do with your Information.

Information Access and Rights

Data protection law provides you with a number of rights that the practice is committed to supporting you with;

Right to Access

You have the right to obtain:

confirmation that your information is being used, stored or shared by the practice

a copy of information held about you

If you only require a particular part of your record, tell us and this may mean we can respond quicker.

We will respond to your request within one month of receipt or will tell you when it might take longer.

We are required to validate your identity including the identity of someone making a request on your behalf

Right to Object or Withdrawn Consent

We mainly use, store and share your information because we are permitted in order to deliver your healthcare but you do have a right to object to us doing this.

Where we are using, storing and sharing your information based on explicit consent you have provided, you have a right to withdraw that consent at any time.

Our Data Protection Officer will be happy to speak with you about any concerns you have.

Right to Correction

If information about you is incorrect, you are entitled to request that we correct it

There may be occasions, where we are required by law to maintain the original information – our Data Protection Officer will talk to you about this and you may request that the information is not used during this time

We will respond to your request within one month of receipt or will tell you when it might take longer.

Sometimes your information will be used to identify whether you need particular support from us.

Those involved in your care might look at particular ‘indicators’ (such as particular conditions) and contact you or take action for healthcare purposes. For example, this might be to prevent you from having to visit accident and emergency by supporting you in your own home or in the community.

We will use automated technology to help us to identify people that might require support but ultimately, the decision about how or whether to provide extra support you is made by those involved in your care.Our Data Protection Officer will be happy to speak to you about this if you have concerns or objections.

Information Technology

The practice will use third parties to provide services that involve your information such as;

Removal and destruction of confidential waste

Provision of clinical systems

Provision of connectively and servers

Data analytics or warehousing (these allow us to make decisions about care or see how effectively the practice is run – personal data will never be sold or made available to organisations not related to your care delivery)

We have contracts in place with these third parties that prevent them from using it in any other way that instructed. These contracts also require them to maintain good standards of security to ensure your confidentiality.